Wal-Mart and Bloomberg

J.P. Suarez, the chief compliance officer for Wal-Mart Stores Inc., appeared with outspoken gun control advocate Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York to announce the changes at a gathering of Bloomberg’s group Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

As if that’s not bad enough, here is a list of the changes to Wal-Mart policies that will be enacted:

Creating a record and alert system to record when a gun sold at Wal-Mart is later used in a crime. If the purchaser of that gun later tries to buy another gun at Wal-Mart, the system would alert the sales clerk of the prior buy and could refuse to make the sale.

So, I buy a shotgun at Wal-Mart which is then stolen from my house and used in a crime without my knowledge. I then go to Wal-Mart 6 months later to buy another shotgun, and I find out I suddenly can’t buy a gun? Then what, they call the police to come down and grill me about my legal gun purchase? You can add the fact that this system also creates a de facto gun registry for all firearms purchased at Wal-Mart to my reasons why I’m disgusted with this.

Retaining the recorded images of gun sales in case law enforcement wants to view them later as part of an investigation.

Oh good, I love being videotaped and having those images given to law enforcement without my consent while I’m conducting a perfectly legal transaction. Wal-Mart is basically saying that “we’re going to take your picture (without your consent) and possibly give that picture to the cops (without your consent) if we think you’ve done something naughty.”

I actually have nothing to say about this last one, I’m fine with Wal-Mart wanting to make double-plus sure that people who they employee are squeaky clean, that’s their right.

This article just hit the AP a short time ago, here is the statement of Chris Cox, Executive Director of NRA-ILA:

“Today’s announcement by New York City (NYC) Mayor Mike Bloomberg comes as no surprise to NationalRifle Association (NRA) members across the country. None of these joint Wal-Mart/Mayor Bloomberg initiatives will lower crime, because they ignore the real cause of crime — criminals.

Mayor Bloomberg has long confused his NYC mayoral podium for a national bully pulpit from which he feels entitled to push his personal gun control agenda outside NYC. Now, instead of trying to impose his philosophy on other cities and states, Mike Bloomberg has set his sights on our country’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

Bloomberg proves his disdain for individual firearm ownership, and his assertion that only the privileged should own a firearm and should have the right to defend themselves and their loved ones.

NRA will continue to oppose any scheme that puts burdens on law-abiding Americans and not on criminals.”

I’m in 100% agreement with Sebastian, that I will never again buy firearms related products from Wal-Mart. This only reinforces my desire to use my dollars at stores and organizations that support the right to keep and bear arms. Sure, it’s a few dollars here and there, but it’s a few dollars that will be going to Midway USA, Cabelas, and Gander Mountain instead of Wal-Mart.

The other thing that really upsets me about this is that it puts a lot of rural gun owners in a bind – thanks to Wal-Mart’s effectiveness at putting mom-and-pop shops out of business, many rural gun owners don’t have a lot of options for places to purchase their ammo from, which leaves them with the choice of paying high shipping costs for ordering online or having their money used to support Mayor Bloomberg’s campaign against every single illegal guns.

Just so you know, WalMart is already trying to use facial recognition to tie your purchases together. They hope to be able to consolidate all of your purchases in their huge-o-mungous database (usually the largest one in the world, or at least the non-gov world, in the annual rankings) even if you use cash. They will be able to connect all of your credit/debit cards and checking accounts together by knowing who you are. This gives them some incredibly useful data for marketing purposes.

I’d like to know how they’re going to get the trace data to create their “criminal gun owner database”. Under Tiahrt, they can’t. They aren’t law enforcement. So it makes a wonderful sound bite but the devil is always in the details. Unless Mayor Bloomberg is going to “assist” them through law enforcement under his control.

Which raises an interesting point: Can a private entity establish their own list of gun owners? Under 18 USC 926(a), any government or government entity cannot. But if you’re a gun shop, can you take the info from a 4473 and make your own private gun registry? For what purpose? What are the legal protections against that list being turned over voluntarily to law enforcement for any reason?